


Between the Stars

by kinosternon



Category: Free!
Genre: Alternate Universe - Future, Alternate Universe - Science Fiction, M/M, ace pilot!Haruka, robot!Hiyori, space station engineer!Ikuya
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-02-21
Updated: 2020-02-29
Packaged: 2021-02-18 21:29:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,941
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22833487
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kinosternon/pseuds/kinosternon
Summary: Hiyori is an android whose primary objective is keeping Ikuya safe—both from the decrepit mining station Ikuya's been maintaining for years and, as much as possible, from Ikuya himself.So when ace pilot Haruka and Ikuya's other reckless ex-friends finally return to help relocate the last few inhabits of the station to somewhere newer and safer, Hiyori wants them to stay as far away as possible. After all, they have a record of hurting Ikuya and putting him in danger...But when disaster strikes in the middle of the evacuation effort, they may be Hiyori's last hope to save him and everyone else on board.
Relationships: Kirishima Ikuya/Tono Hiyori
Kudos: 9





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by [HiyoIku Week 2019](https://hiyoiku-week.tumblr.com/) over on Tumblr! 
> 
> I wanted this to be a oneshot, but I ended up planning out a lot more than could comfortably fit in one chapter. I'll be trying to update this weekly or so, but updates may be somewhat irregular. 
> 
> Only warnings on this one are for swearing and general sci-fi peril/stakes. Enjoy!

"I'm sorry, but Chief Engineer Kirishima is very busy at the moment." Hiyori Tono, android assistant and unofficial secretary to said chief engineer, keeps the smirk off his face with an effort. "I'm sure that if you contact him again once his shift's over—" 

"Bullshit," the face on the other end of the call says. He wags a finger at the camera. "You look here, you overgrown tin can, I'm sure that—" 

"Asahi, don't be rude," comes a voice from off-screen, and a large shoulder darkens half of the camera's view. "Hiyori-kun, it's good to see you again." 

"Tachibana-san." Hiyori nods, the only amount of movement that's easy register on the system's small, beat-up cameras. "I'm glad to see you looking well." 

"Same to you. It looks like you've gotten bigger!" 

"Well," Hiyori points out, "I could hardly be an acceptable assistant to Ikuya if I still looked like a middle school student, could I?" 

"That's true." Makoto's smile is mild. "It suits you. How has Ikuya been?" 

"Busy, I'm afraid," Hiyori says, and this time he _does_ feel a little bit of the twinge in his social cost-benefit analysis processes that he's come to associate with guilt. Makoto's likable, even after all these years, that he's hard to mislead. "It's been many years since the base has had to hold so many people. He's been making a lot of repairs." 

"Is he in charge of it? Isn't Natsuya-kun there?" 

"Natsuya Kirishima is currently investigating the launch trajectory to the proposed new orbit path," Hiyori says. "He's busy with that, so Ikuya's been heading the engineering department for a while now." 

"That's a lot of responsibility," comes a voice from off-screen, and Hiyori feels himself bristle, body responding to the voice the same way it might to news of an oxygen leak or an engine malfunction. Before he can retort, however, Asahi speaks again. 

"That's true," he says, and for Asahi—the one Hiyori remembers, anyway—he seems uncharacteristically worried. "He's got a supervisor helping him with it, at least, right?" 

"He has the same staff anyone would have in his position," Hiyori says. "If you're implying that he needs oversight, he doesn't. He's a genius." 

"I'm sure he's very capable, but that's a lot to put on any one person's shoulders," Masato says, and pauses. "We don't want to bother him if he's busy, of course, but—" 

"I'm glad you understand," Hiyori says. "I'll let you know when he's done with his shift." Which, technically, he will—the next one, which will end just before the ceremony celebrating the start of the relocation is scheduled to begin. They don't need to know that Ikuya's shift ended 15 minutes ago, and if Hiyori has anything to say about it, they won't find out till it's well past too late. 

He ends the call, and only then lets a small, victorious smile cross his face. That's one problem at least temporarily handled, and he's not going to let the laundry list of other problems and worries erase all the satisfaction of finding at least this one, small way of keeping Ikuya safe. 

Speaking of which...the smile fades a bit as he pushes the button to start a video call with Ikuya. He waits, and waits, and waits...till finally Ikuya answers. He's glaring up at the screen, eyes ringed with exhaustion. 

"I know what you're going to say," he says. "I'm not done yet." 

Hiyori feels his expression turn mild. "I'm not asking you to go off-duty just yet," he says. "But can you update the list of what needs doing, please? Some of the junior engineers have just come on and are wondering why they don't have their assignments." 

"Oh," Ikuya says, and his eyes dip for a moment, forlorn at the nonexistent rebuke. "Of course. I'll get on that right away." 

"Good," Hiyori says. "I'll be down soon." 

"Understood," Ikuya says, and hangs up. 

Hiyori takes a moment to sigh and run his hands through his hair. He pauses at the way his scalp burns under his fingers as he does, runs an internal diagnostic, and sighs again. Sits in perfect silence for a long minute, breathing deep to vent the extra heat from his systems, encouraging his PRAM to sort and empty itself and start afresh. 

Ikuya isn't the only one struggling with the mountain of tasks necessary to keep the closing of the station running smoothly, but unlike Hiyori, he doesn't have the ability to force himself to reprioritize. That's harder for organic life-forms, and hard, it seems, for Ikuya in particular. 

In a way, that's what Hiyori is for. 

So he's patient, as he makes his way down to the engineering office. He doesn't rush, and he greets the other engineers politely on his way to Ikuya's office. He doesn't announce himself when he arrives, either, instead closing the door silently behind himself and quietly watching the small, hunched body in front of the wall of screens. 

Ikuya acknowledges him eventually anyway. "Almost done with the updated list," he says. "But there's some admin-clearance-only stuff I really need to—” 

"Make a list of?" Hiyori asks innocently. "I know all your duties, and I'm cleared to perform them in an emergency. I'd say this qualifies." 

That makes Ikuya sit up straight, and turn his chair around, staring. "I'm sorry, what?" 

"I've been watching you work for years," Hiyori says, coming forward. "If you make a list of what needs doing, I can do it. I know the safety protocols backwards and forwards, and right now...this base is about to be supporting more people than we have in years. It's not bad enough to alert the populace of elevated risk, and no one's in danger yet, but on the back-end? I think it's fair to call this an emergency." He steps forward and looks down at Ikuya, expression serious. "Especially since you haven't been sleeping." 

Ikuya ducks his head, starting to shake his it in denial. "I can't ask you to—” 

"You can," Hiyori says gently, and puts a hand on Ikuya's shoulder. "You need to rest. It won't help anyone if you're too tired to make sure the evacuation itself goes smoothly." 

They both wince a bit at the word, but it's an apt description. The Iwatobi station used to be a center of trade and mining, but between unlucky accidents, tapping out the more stable portions of the asteroid field, and increasingly nasty solar storms from the nearest star system, it's been on the bare edge of failure for over a decade. Money stretches farther out here, admittedly, which was part of the reason why Natsuya kept them out here, but all but the most down-on-their-luck families had moved out as Ikuya had grown up. 

Some of them are coming back for the relocation, now that the funding for it has been approved. The event has the guise of a celebration, but they're losing a great deal, too. 

"I know. The next part's where we'll really have to be careful," Ikuya says. He pinches the bridge of his nose between his thumb and forefinger. "But—" 

"But nothing," Hiyori says lightly. "I know how to do this kind of work, and I don't need to sleep like you do. I'm your assistant; let me assist, and you can start with the most important issues that are still left in the morning." 

Ikuya sighs, but his acquiescence is clear in the way he starts picking up his things, gathering them up in his arms only to dump them by his workbag and then start putting them in, one by one. "I wanted to be further along before they got here," he said. 

"We will be very clear about where it is and is not safe to go," Hiyori says, matter-of-fact. "As long as our guests heed those warnings, they will be perfectly safe. Your friends have grown, Ikuya. Surely they must have learned by now not to try to access areas that are off-limits." 

"I wouldn't count on it," Ikuya mutters as slouches toward the door, "but _we'll_ be careful. Night, Hiyori." 

"Good night, Ikuya," Hiyori murmurs, though the door is already starting to slide shut behind him. "Sleep well." 


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> There are things Hiyori can fix, and things he can't, but that doesn't mean he's going to stop trying.

It's a busy night at the base—or rather, the base keeps Hiyori busy. It's silent—not enough people to have many insomniacs wandering the hallways, and residents who are too used to surprise malfunctions in the middle of the night to be willing to wander around unaccounted for. 

So Hiyori wanders the station in silence, wirelessly pinging nodes in the local backup networks and checking the structural integrity reports. It's a job he's uniquely suited for—he's essentially a walking networking hotspot, with error correction abilities that put all but the most advanced servers to shame. He spends most of his time around the station subconsciously keeping an eye on the local systems and running diagnostics, especially lately; but it's only on nighttime rounds like these where he gets to give the station's systems his full attention. 

Those systems are not perfect—nothing's perfect anymore, and it needs to be better than it is, he knows. The official standards of integrity are carefully checked and upheld, and no one is allowed in areas that are considered potentially unsound; but Iwatobi Station's environs are more dangerous than most, with the solar storms and the asteroids that evade detection, appear out of nowhere and strike the walls, strike each other and ricochet at difficult-to-predict angles. 

Redundancies need redundancies. Every component of the station needs to be able to stave off catastrophic failure long enough for everyone to be able to evacuate, no matter the disaster. It's an impossible standard, and a race against time that's bound to end in futility. 

That's why they're evacuating, even if they're calling it a relocation. It's also why Ikuya's been working himself to exhaustion for years and years, with the darkness always biting at his heels, haunting him, never letting him sleep. 

Hiyori can stare out into the dark just fine, can prowl down the halls and inspect every corner. He's not scared of the dark or the cold, and though he wouldn't last much longer in a vacuum than a human would, he doesn't actually need to breathe. But he's very _aware_ of the darkness, of the mere feet or less of metal and ingenuity between the dozens of vulnerable humans and the dead, frozen emptiness. 

He is constantly assessing the risks, for the sake of his most important person. 

* * *

There had been at the base years ago, back when Hiyori had still been wired into the station server, a remnant of a long-abandoned project. Some children had broken into a restricted area of the ship to play, and an unexpected solar storm had damaged the base's systems. The area the children were in been in had started to depressurize, and half the base had been roped into the effort to get them out before they were jettisoned to their deaths. 

Seeing the footage of their escape and eventual rescue had struck something in Hiyori that he hadn't known existed. One tearful face in particular stood out to him—the smallest boy, curled up in a ball against his brother and shaking and crying as his brother shouted. Even though he was surrounded by the others, he looked oddly lonely. 

Hiyori had been aware, in an abstract way, that only a lucky sliver of probability had let the boy live long enough to cry about it. He'd accessed the boy's public profile and read about the accident that had taken his parents' lives—one not so different from this one. 

It occurred to him, seemingly from nowhere, how unfair this small world the boy lived in was, how arbitrary its rules of life and death. He wanted to make sure it would never happen again, and in so doing, he'd discovered what wanting _was_.

He'd alerted the shocked engineers, requested to be put into a child-sized chassis, and had joined Ikuya's class a few weeks before the rest of his supposed friends had been taken off the stations by their shell-shocked families. 

Though he'd hardly understood what was happening at the time, he'd watched Ikuya withdraw deep into himself, haunted as much by loneliness as by what had almost happened to him. It had been hard to convince him to acknowledge Hiyori after that, though eventually they had become friends. Hiyori's been trying to protect Ikuya, his brother, and the community at Iwatobi station ever since. 

If he and Ikuya can just get everyone through this process, through the loading the ships and the launch and the arrival at their new destination, and once Ikuya can check the systems for himself and know for _sure_ they're safe...maybe then, Ikuya will finally be able to rest a full shift again. Maybe he'll get through the night without nightmares, and even patch that last corner of himself that is always leaking out into the darkness. 

It hasn't worked yet, but Hiyori still can't help but hope. 

* * *

Hiyori finishes his rounds and goes back to the chief engineering office, picking up the administrative duties Ikuya had left. Ikuya is a genius with designing predictive algorithms related to system failures, but even for him, it's hard to beat a literal machine at polishing syntax. It's a pleasant challenge, converting pseudocode to real code and covering up the few holes in his logic Ikuya's left behind. 

There's a knock on the door. 

Hiyori pauses, sits back, turns on the intercom. "Yes?" 

A red-thatched head is obnoxiously close to the screen. "Hey! We're here to see Ikuya Kirishima. Is he on duty?" 

Hiyori blinks at the screen, neutral expression masking irritation. He is on the clock, after all, so it's best to act professional. "You're early." 

"Pushed the engines that extra li'l bit," Asahi says, proud. "Figured we might be able to help with preparations before everyone else gets here, maybe catch up some." 

"You got clearance to dock early, of course," Hiyori says. 

"Of course," Asahi says, but while it doesn't seem like a lie, he flusters in a way that makes Hiyori's social cue analysis wonder whether he'd pulled something dubious to manage it. 

"All right..." Hiyori says. "But I'm afraid Ikuya isn't here. He's very busy right now—” 

"Oh, no you don't," Asahi says. "You've tried that on us once before, you don't get to hide him that easily—” 

"I'm not hiding him," Hiyori says, still stiff and pleasant. "He's resting—his first full night's sleep in the last three days at least, by the way."

Asahi subsides for a moment, frowning, but Haruka steps forward. "You said he was off-duty before." 

"He should have been," Hiyori says, and it isn't even a lie. "Let's just say, his schedule has a way of shifting." 

"I didn't think robots could lie," Asahi growls at him, and Hiyori chuckles. 

"Now, that's just rude. I'm sure you've studied more about AI than just Asimov in literature class." 

"Asahi," Makoto hisses from offscreen, and then pushes his head in again. "Toono-kun, do you think you could let us in, at least?" 

Hiyori sighs and agrees, pressing the button to open the door. The three come trooping in, looking (in Asahi's case) very pleased with himself, and (in Makoto's) faintly apologetic. 

There's nothing to read on Nanase's face, but there never is. Even many years later, he's still a mystery to Hiyori, and Hiyori doesn't have novice social skills to blame for that result anymore.

Hiyori turns to face them all, face blank and polite, though in the back of his head he's still working. It makes it easier to ignore the anger that he experiences as a roiling feeling in his midsection, as crashing waves of ire against his eyes. 

"Here you are, inside," he says. "Can I help you?" 

"...Can we see what you're working on?" 

Nanase was not the one who he'd expected to break that particular silence, much less with such a utilitarian request, but Hiyori nods. "If you insist," he says, and gestures at the monitor behind him.

Nanase steps past him without a word, eyeing the monitor. Hiyori feels a tickle in the back of his head as data files are opened and traversed without any input from him. 

"How has Ikuya been?" Makoto says awkwardly, in what Hiyori suspects is a bid to quell the growing silence. 

"Busy," he says flatly. 

Asahi rolls his eyes. "Can you at least not repeat yourself?" 

"It's true," Hiyori says. "If you wanted to ask him directly, you could have done so before now, you know. It's hardly the time to interfere in his affairs." 

"We're not interfering, we're here to help!" Asahi squeaks, but Hiyori jumps and looks over his shoulder, voice falling into a growl. 

"Nanase, what—” 

"Check the changelog," Nanase says, not even sparing Hiyori a glance over his shoulder. "I'm fixing things." 

Hiyori does, in a split second, and grimaces. Nanase had, indeed, opened up automated reports from the ships' systems and started searching for signs of inefficiencies. For someone who has it on record that he refuses to take on any job other than pilot, the search functions Nanase's using are advanced—too finely calibrated for Hiyori to determine at a glance what problems he's finding, or figure out how the commands he's sending is solving them. 

"Oh, good luck," Asahi says, and for a moment Hiyori is unsure whom he's talking to—but no, he's looking at him. "Once Haru gets started 'fixing' something..." 

"Are there potential long-term consequences for the systems?" Hiyori asks, sharp.

"No," Makoto sighs, "but if you want to update it later, you'll have to revert. Haru-chan's work tends to wreak havoc on anyone else's." 

"Don't put a -chan on my name," Haruka says, flatly. The complaint goes unacknowledged. 

"I don't suppose he can include documentation?" Hiyori says to Haruka's audience, instead of acknowledging him directly. 

Behind him, Nanase still answers. "No. I'm a pilot, not an engineer." He says it like it's his own personal catchphrase. 

Hiyori sighs. "You'll have Ikuya to answer for if you mess up his base." 

Nanase is matter-of-fact when he answers. "None of us will be around long enough for these workarounds to fail." 

There's an awkward silence around the room. "Well," Hiyori says, and the words are heavier than the acid he wants to spit, "at least you're all here at a time where it doesn't really matter what you break." 

There's a moment of silence, broken—perhaps unwisely—by Asahi. 

"Look, we never..." 

He trails off. Hiyori gives him a long, dry look. To his surprise, Asahi actually shrinks back. "What do you know," he mutters. "You weren't there. We didn't—” 

"I wasn't there, no," Hiyori says, voice hard. "I _saw._ " 

Asahi stares at him. "But you—” 

"I was watching through the security cameras," Hiyori says. "I was hooked up to the systems, for years. I remember everything from that day, probably better than you do." 

"Then you know," Makoto says firmly, "that what happened was . And you also know that Haru kept us all safe." 

"I suppose that's technically true." He pauses. "But that doesn't mean I want you anywhere near Ikuya. If you manage to put anyone on this crew in any more danger than they're already in...I will make sure that the reports go to exactly the right authorities to ensure you're never in charge of so much as a drone ever again." 

"Okay, what even is your problem?" Asahi bursts out. "We're Ikuya's _friends._ Whatever it is you think we did—” 

"Has it occurred to you," Hiyori asks, pleasant and feigning detachment, "that I might know more about Ikuya's situation than you do?" 

Asahi bristles. "What the hell can you know—” 

Hiyori shakes his head, cutting him off before he can finish what Hiyori would confidently predict to be an insult. "I know that before Ikuya started school, he and his brother lost their parents and almost their lives in a station accident. I know that with the stunt you pulled, purportedly to 'fix' his fears, he almost died again." 

He takes a step forward. The last time he'd met Asahi, he hadn't been able to loom over him, but now he can. It's a surprisingly heady realization, and he smirks at it as he drives his point home. "You called his worst fears down on him, and then left without a backward glance. You left him _alone._ " 

Asahi stammers, though whether it's out of intimidation or guilt, Hiyori can't tell. "That's—I mean, we—” 

"We're sorry," Makoto says softly. "We were scared, too, and young, and we wouldn't have been able to talk in real time anyway, but I wish we'd stayed in touch." 

Hiyori turns his head to stare at him, glaring, but Makoto, unlike Asahi, doesn't seem fazed. 

"That's one of the reasons I was excited about this mission," Makoto says softly. "It's not just a homecoming...I want to tell Ikuya in person how sorry I am." 

That takes the wind out of Hiyori's sails, a little bit. "What makes you think he wants to talk to _you?_ " he asks anyway, unwilling to give up just yet. 

"Do you know for sure he doesn't?" Makoto asks. 

Hiyori pauses. He has the ability to lie to them again, and from the second they came in, he's been waiting for the moment to tell them that Ikuya wants the painful memories they bring with them as far away from him as possible...and yet, somehow, the words stick in his throat. 

Why? His processing works similarly to a brain, including an intuition from data he no longer consciously processes. He doesn't understand why he's wondering whether Ikuya might actually want an apology, but he's suddenly reluctant to deny it. 

"I know he has bigger things to worry about right now," he says eventually. "And he's too important to this process. Distracting him is dangerous." 

"You can't just decide something like that for him," Asahi protests. "He's his own—” 

"You don't get to force yourselves on him, either," Hiyori says, and crosses his arms. "Look. I can't _stop_ you from being a problem; you're already here. I can, however, _ask_ you to leave Ikuya alone until the evacuation is safely underway. Also, he's not here right now. Please don't try to track him down. He's supposed to be sleeping." 

Makoto and Asahi stare at him, apparently at an impasse. He hears Haruka hit a final sequence of keys and tap return, and turns to see him rising from his seat. 

"Understood," he says. "We'll stay out of the way, for now. We have work to do." 

And the other two follow him, just like they always have, quietly out of the room with the door shut behind him. 

Hiyori takes a long moment to close his eyes. He means to try and suppress the activity of his social processors, because he can feel them eating bandwidth in a way that they only do in an argument; but instead, he finds himself tapping into the safety monitoring system, requesting a feed of Nanase Haruka's progress throughout the ship. It plays in the back of his head as he sits forward and puts his head in his hands, rubbing at his forehead in an attempt to override the sensors there sending faulty signals of overwhelming pressure. 

_Please,_ he says mentally, to no part of the system in particular, but just simple subvocalizations to himself, _**Please** just let them stay out of Ikuya's way..._

**Author's Note:**

> Coming up next: Hiyori keeps trying to give Haruka and his friends the runaround, they keep trying to meet him anyway, and Ikuya just wants the evacuation to go smoothly. Nobody really gets what they're hoping for.


End file.
